Do you guys ever get sucked in? Sometimes I know that I should just stay quiet and not say anything, but then I can't help it, and feel like being silent is saying they're right, and before I know it I'm debating with strangers about ethics for days.

Ok. Immediately following the vice presidential debates, someone on my Facebook friend list posted something obnoxious about the abortion part of the debate, regarding the two Catholic vice presidential hopefuls, and how one of them isn't being true to his faith. This bothers me so I feel the need to say something, and then this devolves into something crazy.

I'm not going to change names because I don't care about these people and they are posting publicly to Facebook anyway. Am I wrong and are these people sane? Would you have stayed quiet? Should I have given up and abandoned this way before it ever got this far?*I am Angel B.

_________________http://sisterlegumes.com Vegans sisters, a city apart.Our baby looked like a bean, so now we are pro-life. And we don't eat beans. -Tofulish

I don't think that you can change anyone's mind by arguing with them on the internet. Most people just want to "win."

I also think that I don't give a fork what the Catholic Church says about abortion. I also would personally prefer if my elected leaders did not spend too much time worrying about "souls" and instead worried about things in the here and now also known as "reality."

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

In Catholicism, I believe it does but the Catholics have a hierarchy for everything.

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

I haven't read the convo yet, but I think it's not awesome to post people's names publicly like that. Facebook is only semi-public - they control who sees their posts. Unless you have their permission to broadcast their conversation more broadly, it doesn't seem like a cool thing to do.

I never argue with people on the internet or anywhere else really. I come across this a lot, not about politics or religion, but when I tell people I'm studying nutrition/a dietitian they have a lot of crazy ideas about food and I find it never does anything except peas them off when I tell them they are wrong.

A guy the other night ask me "how many minutes after waking up should I drink water with lemon juice?" I was like "oh, it doesn't matter, however long you want" instead of "uhhh what?"

on facebook, i just hide people from my feed or unfriend them when they start saying crazy stuff.

_________________I am not a troll. I am TELLING YOU THE ******GOD'S TRUTH****** AND YOU JUST DON'T WANT THE HEAR IT DO YOU?

I haven't read the convo yet, but I think it's not awesome to post people's names publicly like that. Facebook is only semi-public - they control who sees their posts. Unless you have their permission to broadcast their conversation more broadly, it doesn't seem like a cool thing to do.

Normally I would generally agree. I was just upset and wanted to be able to talk about it somewhere. I just wanted the whole thing heard, and didn't have an easy way to get rid of names. I had let it go when that person named Peggy started in on me, and it made me overly upset.

_________________http://sisterlegumes.com Vegans sisters, a city apart.Our baby looked like a bean, so now we are pro-life. And we don't eat beans. -Tofulish

Eh. I didn't think the argument was so bad. The real problem is that nobody in the conversation seems to know what the actual law is or what it might be, so the argument is just a pointless abstraction any way you look at it.

I argue on the internet. It's equal parts irritating and super fun, let's me get out all the pent-up wanting to argue with people IRL I don't get to do. Usually it's pointless, but sometimes I've had really interesting breakthroughs with people where we both learned something, so not all bad. I don't argue with anyone I lack fundamental respect for, though, because they're not worth my energy. If I don't respect them, I unfriend them, that's the rule IRL and on the internet for me. But if I respect you, I'll have a pointless debate with you for hours on end just for the pleasure of it.

The part that I thought was crazy was that sisterlegume is anti-choice because she wants to eliminate funding for animal feed and so deprive Peggy of her choice to eat whatever she wants. Thereby making her more anti-choice (and presumably more pro-life) than Catholics.

Ummmm lady, pro-choice people aren't pro you having choices about everything, just choices about your own reproductive system. Also, how is eliminating government support for animal feed taking away your choice to eat meat? Especially when you post that you don't care whether people choose to have abortions or not as long as they pay for them themselves (ie no having your Catholic employer foot the bill, you freeloading abortionist!). Just Whuuuuu?

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Well, it's strawman-y and partially just bad reading comprehension on Peggy's part I think, but really I'd have started the argument with some defining of terms/clarification of actual law, etc. And then deal with the reality that there's only so nuanced you can be in a Facebook exchange. Any kind of "if I took X to the extreme and brought in my viewpoints on Y, I might be inclined to say Z therefore your viewpoint about A in the context of totally nonexistent universe B is less logical than my Z" is super confusing to people who ain't that clever to begin with. There's kind of a limit to what you can reasonably expect from people, whether it's just because reading for meaning is not their forte or because they're easily confuddled. Bringing in the veganism thing was kind of a rooky arguing-on-the-interwebs mistake here; you're both complicating the argument needlessly and giving them something about you to pick at as a distraction from your actual point.

The PPK is pretty much the only place where I ever argue with anyone on the Internet, because I trust you guys to argue intelligently and reasonably. I don't think there's been anywhere else on the Internet I've ever felt this way about. Which is really weird when I think about it.

I hate arguing with people who aren't listening to your argument. I hate arguing with people who aren't listening to themselves either and aren't hearing how contentless their arguments are. And overall I hate drawing attention to my point of view.

Birth control coverage is probably the least of things that may not be covered if the precedent is set: Jehovah's Witnesses wouldn't want to be forced to cover blood transfusions, and what about Christian Scientists?

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

The FB post does not appear to be public and I don't think it's such a good idea to share this on a public forum, even if your friend may not see this. When posts are public on FB, there's a globe icon next to the person's name & location (if they give one). Posts marked as friend only or friends of friends have the icon shown in the picture.

ETA: here's an example of the posting options.

_________________Again, you are all brilliant and sexy. And I am lavender-laden and secure in my masculinity. - Sir Brancis Facon

It almost never happens that someone admits they are wrong in a conversation on the internet. Sometimes a seed IS planted. Arguing for veganism on the internet is like the Presidential debates. You do to it to make an impression on and convince the people in the audience, not the person you are debating. To that end I think it is helpful not to answer every stupid point the other person makes, but to be polite, be brief, quote facts with sources and leave things alone.

Nah, I don't bother arguing. But I've learned a lot and changed some views I used to hold pre-2006 (before I joined the PPK). But you guys are the only internet folks who have influenced me that way (I say for the better!)

I was talking (in person) with my sister the other day, and I can't even remember what we were sort of arguing about, but I was explaining the background of something we disagreed about and she stopped me from continuing and said "I don't want my mind to be changed about this!" Crazy as it sounds, I understand that. I can hold very stubbornly to my views and don't want the different perspective and that's how she felt. There are times when have I preferred to be ignorant, where my ignorance is a safe place that I've always known and feels comfortable and that's what she was talkin' about.